Sri Aurobindo in Calcutta on 23 August 1907, before giving the "Advice to National College Students" talk.     Part One   Writings and a Resolution   1890 ­ 1906   All the pieces in this part predate the launch of the Bande Mataram. Sri Aurobindo wrote the first one in Cambridge in 1890 ­ 92 and the last one in Baroda at the end of 1905 or the beginning of 1906 -a few months before he came to Calcutta to join the national movement. Only four of these pieces were published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. "India and the British Parliament" and New L

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, August 26th, 1907 }   Our False Friends   The Englishman has been warning us against our false friends. We have been asked to avert our eyes from those Indian delegates who have asked the socialistic Conference at Stuttgart to liberate one-fifth of the human race from serfdom. The Englishman unblushingly calls these Indian delegates our enemies and perhaps points to himself as our only friend, guide and philosopher. With the Englishman for our friend, and the Civil and Military Gazette for our ally and the rest of the Anglo-Indian Press for our well-wishers it is no doubt sinful to long for a change for the paradise of uni

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 11th, 1907 }   The Crisis   The last action of the Minto-Morley Government has torn every veil from the situation and the policy of the British rulers. Whatever else may be the result of this vigorous attempt to crush Nationalism in the Punjab, it has the merit of clearing the air. We have no farther excuse for mistaking our position or blundering into ineffective policies. The bureaucracy has declared with savage emphasis that it will tolerate a meekly carping loyalism, it will tolerate an ineffective agitation of prayer, protest and petition, but it will not tolerate the new spirit. If the Indian harbours aspiratio

New Lamps for Old ­ I New Lamps for Old ­ I   If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into a ditch? So or nearly so runs an apophthegm of the Galilean prophet, whose name has run over the four quarters of the globe. Of all those pithy comments on human life, which more than anything else made his teaching effective, this is perhaps the one which goes home deepest and admits of the most frequent use. But very few Indians will be found to admit —  certainly I myself two years ago would not have admitted, —  that it can truthfully be applied to the National Congress. Yet that it can be so applied, —  nay, that no judicious mind can honestly pronounce a

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 28th, 1907 }   The Statesman in Retreat   The strong censures which the Statesman's article on the Bande Mataram case has called forth from the Bengali Press in Calcutta, have forced that journal to enter into some explanation of its conduct. While professing to stand by every word it had written, it manages under cover of the plea that it has been misunderstood, to unsay much that it had said. The article was on the face of it a malignant attack on the Bande Mataram , an attempt to create the impression that this paper was either a journal managed on a dishonest, disreputable and impossible princip

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 9th, 1907 }   By the Way   The Anglo-Indian Defence Association exists, we believe, in order to take up the cause of Anglo-Indians individually and generally, whether that cause be just or unjust, whether the individual be a good citizen or a criminal pursued by the law. It is not surprising that such a body should also be found championing the Mahomedan hooligans who, for the present, are the good friends, allies and brothers-in-arms of Anglo-India in its fight against Swadeshi. A certain Mr. Garth, said to be a son of the late Sir Richard Garth, Chief Justice and one of the cheap and numerous tribe of "F

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 9th, 1908 }   The Asiatic Role   The genius of the Hindu is not for pure action, but for thought and aspiration realized in action, the spirit premeditating before the body obeys the inward command. The life of the Hindu is inward and his outward life aims only at reproducing the motions of his spirit. This intimate relation of his thought and his actions is the secret of his perpetual vitality. His outward life, like that of other nations, is subject to growth and decay, to periods of greatness and periods of decline, but while other nations have a limit and a term, he has none. Whenever death claims his port

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 13th, 1907 }   By the Way   An old and venerable friend of our old and venerable friend the Indian Mirror weeps bitter tears over Raja Subodh Mallik. Subodh Mallik is a large-hearted and generous man, laments our friend's friend; but he is doing immense harm to himself and his country. Is he not partly responsible for the publication of that pernicious sheet, Bande Mataram, which attacks old and venerable gentlemen and old and venerable journals, and refuses to regard politics as a school for society manners? Has he not given a lakh of rupees to the National Council,— an institution for which the Indian Mirror che

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 5th, 1907 }   Many Delusions   In a country where subjection has long become a habit of the public mind, there will always be a tendency to shrink from the realities of the position and to hunt for roundabout, safe and peaceful paths to national regeneration. Servitude is painful and intolerable, servitude is killing the nation by inches, servitude must be got rid of, true; but the pains and evils of servitude seem almost more tolerable to a good many people than the sharp, salutary pangs of a resolute struggle for liberty. Hence the not uncommon cry, "The violent and frequently bloody methods followed by ot

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 24th, 1907 }   By the Way   The Englishman and Mr. N. N. Ghose, faithful brothers-in-arms, were beside themselves with joy last week. What had happened? Had Nationalism by some divine miracle been suddenly blotted out of the land? Had the spirit of Nobokissen appeared to his devotee and admirer and prophesied the eternal continuance of the British domination in India? Or had Mr. N. N. Ghose been at last elected to the Legislative Council? No, but happy signs and omens, prophetic of these desirable events, have appeared in the political heavens. Hence this war-dance of victory in Hare Street and Sankaritola. Th